Teen’s machete threat caught on eye-in-sky

A machete-wielding teenager – who moved to Blackpool in a bid to turn his back on a life of crime – wase seen waving the weapon around in the middle of a street.

Thomas Jackson, 19, has now been sentenced to 36 weeks in a Young Offender’s Institution for the broad daylight affray in Withnell Road, South Shore.

You got involved in somebody else’s dispute and I am not interested in what the intentions were.

Judge Jonathan Gibson

Shocking CCTV footage screened at Preston Crown Court showed Jackson wielding the machete above his head towards another man before striking a lamppost with it.

Several people – including a woman carrying a small child – were in the area at around 3pm on May 4 when Jackson committed the offence.

Charlie Brown, prosecuting, told the court Jackson threatened another man, after a woman complained he had been harassing her.

One witness described seeing Jackson produce the machete from its sheath and swing it towards the man’s head.

He was shouting and swearing during the terrifying incident.

Jackson was arrested and denied having the weapon but said the man had been making inappropriate remarks to a young woman.

He later pleaded guilty to affray.

Waahid Omran Barber, defending, told the court Jackson, of Collyhurst Avenue, Marton, had grown up around violence and had moved from his home in Oxfordshire to Lancashire in a bid to break his pattern of offending.

Judge Jonathan Gibson, sentencing, said: “You got involved in somebody else’s dispute and I am not interested in what the intentions were.

“You took a machete to the scene.

“There were members of the public about. One of the people had a little child who had nothing to do with the incident.

“You swung this towards the man and you swung it towards the lamp-post.

“It was obvious from the film that this was a nasty incident. There has to be a prison sentence for what you did.”